>They do have postcodes in Germany, though - the gist of this story was that the lack of street names (identifying houses only by their (not quite sequential) n

>They do have postcodes in Germany, though - the gist of this story was that the lack of street names (identifying houses only by their (not quite sequential) numbers.)) caused delivery services much grief. A see a simple solution to the problem: pass a national law that towns can be like this if they want, but if they don't adopt the national addressing system, then delivery services (and companies sending goods that way) are completely free of all liability if anyone in that town complains about packages being late, mis-delivered, or not delivered at all. People in the town won't be able to pursue the delivery company or the merchant for the money they spent on the package which never arrived. With a law like that in place, the town would probably very quickly change their addressing system.